Oh Young-joo, Minister of SMEs and Startups, "Korea Should Support SME Business Succession Like Japan"

Minister Oh Young-joo Holds Meeting in Japan to Promote Business Succession
Meets Successful SMEs with Japanese M&A Intermediaries

Oh Young-joo, Minister of SMEs and Startups, stated that she will establish a domestic system based on Japan's corporate succession support policies to prepare for the aging of CEOs in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

Minister Oh Young-joo of the Ministry of SMEs and Startups is listening to opinions at the "Korea-Japan Meeting on Revitalizing SME Business Succession" held in Tokyo, Japan.

The Ministry of SMEs and Startups announced that Minister Oh hosted a meeting in Tokyo on the 9th as the first schedule of her visit to Japan to promote corporate succession in SMEs. This meeting was arranged to learn about Japan's successful cases of corporate succession and M&A (mergers and acquisitions) support systems, as Japan has experienced aging earlier than Korea. It aims to proactively prepare for the corporate succession issues arising from the accelerating aging of CEOs in Korean SMEs.

The meeting included M&A Loyal Advisory, a public-private intermediary organization for mergers and acquisitions in Japan, and companies that have successfully completed M&A acquisitions. M&A Loyal Advisory supports SMEs in matching, negotiation, and brokerage when pursuing business succession through M&A.

Company A, a successful SME in M&A acquisition, was established in the early 1980s and has conducted sales and exports of electronic devices while trading with global conglomerates including Korea. In 2019, it acquired Japanese SME Company B and increased its sales.

Company B, the acquired firm, is a solid SME that has supplied precision electronic components to Japanese conglomerates for 20 years. They were able to achieve stable succession through third-party M&A as they could not find relatives to succeed the aging CEO.

On this day, the M&A intermediary organization and successful companies unanimously agreed that firm government support is necessary to prevent profitable SMEs from closing down. One official emphasized, "Like Japan, Korea definitely needs corporate succession support policies to prepare for aging," adding, "Since it is difficult for SMEs to find appropriate buyers and complete M&A, government support and tax benefits are essential."

Minister Oh said, "If we do not prepare support policies in advance to cope with CEO aging, which poses a significant threat to the sustainable growth of our SMEs, it could result in huge economic losses," and added, "We will refer to Japan's precedent, which has been organizing corporate succession support policies since the late 2000s, to establish a system suitable for the reality of our SMEs."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.